The Root Causes of Migration: Why Africans Leave their Homes

Abstract

In recent years, irregular migration from sub-Saharan Africa has been under the spotlight. Western media and politicians often use doomsday scenarios to describe the supposedly millions of desperate people knocking at the gates of the European Eldorado to escape poverty and warfare at home. Such a stereotypical conception of sub-Saharan African migration is not only overlooking its root causes, but it is also far from its real dynamics. Thus, inspired by the extensive literature on international migration and based on data availability, 27 potential root causes of migration were selected to cover 30 sub-Saharan countries for the period between 2002 and 2016. The sensitivity and robustness of each potential determinant of both net migration and refugee population is tested using the two approaches of extreme bounds analysis proposed by Leamer and Leonard, and Sala-I-Martin. The results reveal that gross domestic product per capita, domestic credit, trade, foreign direct investment inflows, external debt, youth unemployment, natural resources rents, international tourism, military expenditure, health expenditure, undernourishment, food production, life expectancy, HIV prevalence, population growth, corruption, voice and accountability, rule of law, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, and common law are the root causes of migration in sub-Saharan Africa.